If there’s one key activity Google(s goog) Glass excels at, it’s taking pictures. Either through a simple voice command or by pressing a button, you can snap an image from your own perspective and then share it online if you desire. But it’s not a perfect solution. Why? Because you don’t know exactly what Glass is snapping until you see the output: You can’t actively frame your image through a live view. A simple third-party app changes that as exemplified by my little addition of red text below in Google’s top level menu.

Advertisement

Paul O’Brien of MoDaCo — and the creator of numerous custom ROMs and apps for Android — recently got Google Glass and learned this the hard way. And I sympathize because many times, I’ve had to take an image with Glass a few times just to get the right framing. O’Brien is a little more tenacious than I am though. He took it upon himself to add a real-time camera viewfinder, so to speak, on Google Glass.

With O’Brien’s app — freely available for download here — you can tell Google Glass to “open camera”. That option presents a live view of the camera sensor on the Glass display, allowing you to properly aim and frame your shot. You can’t actually take a picture with your voice in the mode, however; instead, you’ll have to press the camera button on the side of Google Glass. Still, it’s an effective solution that can eliminate those retakes with Glass and I’m hoping that O’Brien can take it a step further by adding image capture by voice while in this camera preview mode.

It is a desired piece of Glassware but does 2 things that don’t sit well with me.

1. Drain the battery
2. Puts the work back into using the device.

If you want frame up a picture, there are better devices for that. Like a camera or phone. Personally, I like that Glass captures the moment just how it is with our me getting in the way.
—
Great job on the application though. It has been requested by people and he nailed it. Hats off to the developer.